TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography

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Yanbaru Wildlife

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Spent the day up in the Yanbaru region of northern Okinawa with wildlife photographer Mark Thorpe. Found a few interesting critters including mayflies and tiger beetles, both of which required a little patience before they’d stop for a pic.

We then met up with wildlife artist Ichiro Kikuta to get some advice on the best place to find the endemic Yanbaru kuina. He advised us to head out at dusk to a small river where the birds would bathe each evening.

We staked out the spot, and just as the sun dipped below the horizon, a family of Yanbaru kuina came down to bathe. Splish, splash, taking a bath.

In the Studio – Yuki

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A couple of pics of Yuki that I tacked on to another studio shoot earlier this month. The shot above was taken with the 645Z and the 90mm lens, while the shot below was taken with the Pentax K-1 camera and the 28-105mm lens.

Although the 28-105 lens has a maximum aperture of f5.6 at 105mm it is still possible to shoot portraits with a nice shallow depth of field.

Makeup by Audra Presika. The theme is a mixture of Titania the fairy queen, and Pris the replicant.

Prime Cuts – Okinawa

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In a previous blog post I wrote about working on the Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown- Okinawa Episode. (Season 6 Episode 3). I was mainly a location fixer organizing a few things behind the scenes. I was also asked to help with a reenactment where they wanted to visualize the story of Minoru Kinjo. Now a well known sculptor, Kinjo-san was a young boy when the Battle of Okinawa took place.

The reenactment never made it into the Okinawa episode but they were shown recently in the “Prime Cuts” special which shows scenes from the season that never made it into the main episodes.

Anthony Bourdain explained about the Okinawan reenactment:

The idea was to illustrate and give background to a very complicated Okinawan story, Okinawan history. Ultimately, I don’t think it was right for my show, but a noble effort. And beautiful.

The Prime Cuts episode shows Minoru Kinjo telling his story intercut with the reenactments filmed on the beach in Yomitan. My friend Hayakawa-san, his wife, daughter and grandson acted as the Okinawan family, while the crew took on the other roles. Josh (the producer) and I were the American soldiers.

Minoru Kinjo (Image by Zero Point Zero Productions)

It was good to finally see the sequence. Kinjo-san’s story is not unusual, but many who encountered Japanese or American troops did not survive the war.

Timelapse Workshop

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We had a great timelapse workshop this weekend with Mark Thorpe. Here’s a quick video I shot of Motobu Bay. The sequence is made up of 627 frames that were shot from 7.01PM to 8.01PM The images were then processed together in LRTimelapse.

Huge thanks to Mark for teaching the class and to James and Russell for joining and learning new skills.

On the second day we worked on adding movement to out shots using equipment by Syrp. We also introduced Mark to Pizza in the Sky.

A few things I learned shooting my first day to night transition:

I had expected to use the cameras built-in intervalometer, but the Pentax K1 locks down the settings once you start the intervalometer. As you need to make adjustments to the shutter speed during the transition, I had to trigger the shutter manually counting 5 seconds between each one. An external intervalometer will solve this in the future.

Bring mosquito repellant.

Timelapses are awesome.

Motobu is awesome.

You are going to put a lot of wear and tear on the camera’s shutter.

Practice, practice, practice.

In the Studio – Amelia

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Another fun shoot testing out the Pentax K-1 and the 28-105 lens in the studio.

Thanks to Amelia for modeling and makeup. Great working with you.

Master Higa and the Minotaur

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Last week I was chatting with Mark Thorpe about his upcoming time-lapse workshop. He mentioned that Sunday 5th of June was a new moon and possibly the best day of the year for photographing the Milky Way. Mark would be heading out to Mount Fuji, but I thought I’d head over to Zakimi Castle in Yomitan. I doodled the castle and stars on a piece of paper. Then continued to doodle adding a minotaur into the doorway.

I actually have two animal masks sitting in my office. One is a hippo and the other a bull. They hippo has been used for a few rather bizarre photo shoots.

I realized that to create a minotaur all I’d need is the bull mask and a suitable torso. Luckily my mate Adam has both the right physique and was free on the Sunday night.

Still doodling on my piece of paper, the image was lacking a foreground subject and could use a hero. I’d previously photographed 8th-dan karate master Masaharu Higa at Zakimi Castle and knew he lived locally. I could always give him a call and see if he was around on Sunday night.

Yuki and I arrived at Zakimi at 8PM and it was obvious we weren’t going to a clear star-filled sky. Adam however was already in the car park, and another friend Jamie had come to assist. I put a red gel in front of a Profoto B1 strobe then Yuki held it behind Adam in the castle doorway. Jamie stood where Higa sensei would need to be in the final shot. It took a few minutes to adjust positions, focus and lighting until everything looked reasonable.

At 9PM Higa sensei arrived with his gi and a pair of sai. He moved to where Jamie had been standing, and I took a 15 second exposure. The strobe was triggered by the shutter, then I manually fired a speedlight illuminating Higa sensei before painting in the walls of the castle with a flashlight.

And there we have it. From doodle to photograph with a lot of help from my friends. Thanks to Mark Thorpe for getting the ball rolling, to Trevor Williams for being my light painting guru, to Yuki and Jamie for assisting, and most importantly to Adam “the minotaur” Burns and karate master Masaharu Higa.

In the Studio – Sam

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Studio shoot with model Samantha Armistead. 3 different looks: business, beauty and street. Makeup and hair by Audra Pesicka.

Shot using the Pentax 645Z and K-1.

Lighting: Beauty dish camera right, Softbox camera left for fill. Two rectangular softboxes behind the model for edge lighting.

Really pleased with the images, Sam has a fantastic look and was a pleasure to work with. Audra was a real professional, quickly creating 3 different looks that transitioned from one to the other.

For more information on model portfolio sessions. Click here!